My father walked out on me and my mother when I was 9, now I'm 12 and he's contacting me through email. I held a very strong anger against him for a while now, but I think it's time to forgive him. But I don't know if I should... or how to forgive him ? Please Help.

Let's cut to the chase and talk about your anger. Why are/were you angry?

How has that anger negatively affected your life?

Well, I wasn't angry at first I was sad, because I felt like he didn't care because he left. Then I found out that he was with another woman while he was married to my mom. That's when the anger started, I felt as if he didn't care about me or my mother and just lost interest in us and tossed us aside. He did tell me he cared but I simply felt, if he cared he wouldn't have had anything with the other women and he would have stayed. Plus I felt like he was just lying the entire time to me and my mother.

The Anger has negativily effected me, by I can't even talk to him without feeling angry, plus whenever I here talk of other people's father's. I feel mixed emotions of anger and depression and this has caused major depression issues in my life as well as bad anxiety. In fact I even had a anxiety attack at school at one point.

You wanted a real dad who loved you and your mom, someone who would be the head of your family and be someone you could look up to.

Yes that's exactly right, now I just want to know, if I should or if I can forgive him.

What will happen to YOU if you DON'T forgive him?

I'm worried I'll live the rest of my life without any interaction with my father and that's not what I want. I'm worried if I grow up with never forgiving my father, maybe I won't be able to forgive anyone, I'll live my life with knowing I couldn't forgive the one person I wanted to have involved in my life. I don't want him to die, knowing his daughter, never ONCE, spoke to him after he left. I just want to move on, get this behind me and have a father again.

And what will happen to YOU if you DO forgive him?